Commonwealth Education Trust

The Commonwealth Institute was an educational and cultural organisation promoting the Commonwealth of Nations that was based in Kensington, London. It was established, as the Imperial Institute, by royal charter from Queen Victoria in 1888 on Imperial Institute Road (now Imperial College Road). Its name was changed to the Commonwealth Institute in 1958 and it moved to Kensington High Street in 1962. By statute, the operations were the responsibility of a minister of state from 1902 to 2003 and the property occupied for the purposes of the Institute, and of the same name, was held separately by Trustees as a charity asset. In 1999, prior to the end of the statutory regime, arrangements were…

conducts his Imperial Ode as Queen Victoria lays the foundation stone, 1887]] The Imperial Institute (later largely incorporated into Imperial College London) was established in 1888 to hold and apply the property and assets arising from the contributions given almost exclusively by private citizens from across the Empire in a nationwide collection conceived by the then Prince of Wales in 1886 to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of Queen Victoria in 1887. No funding was given by Her Majesty's Government (HMG). It had defined purposes which had a primary emphasis on the exhibition of collections to showcase the various countries' industrial and commercial products and development; and included…